OKEx Latest Industry Giant to Launch Cryptocurrency Index Fund

Crypto trading giant OKEx has become the latest industry giant to launch a cryptocurrency index fund.

Announced this week and debuting on Tuesday, the product — called OK06ETT — will allow investors to invest in a basket of six cryptocurrencies through a convenient fund, shares of which will trade on the exchange against other cryptoassets.

At launch, OK06ETT will include bitcoin (BTC), ethereum (ETH), bitcoin cash (BCH), EOS, as OKB — a utility token created by OKEx. The fund will trade against USDT, a dollar-pegged token issued by cryptocurrency startup Tether.

Investors can also redeem the fund for the underlying assets, which prevents its share price from diverging too far from the fund’s net asset value (NAV). Redemption for either USDT or the underlying will incur a 0.2 percent fee.

The release of this cryptocurrency index fund comes just days after fellow Asia-based exchange Huobi unveiled an extremely similar product, which it described as the world’s “first cryptocurrency ETF.” Huobi, incidentally, recently poached former OKEx CEO Chris Lee just days after his resignation.

Like Huobi’s ETF, OK06ETT will be open to retail investors eligible to trade on OKEx, and the minimum investment will be set at approximately $100.

Other cryptocurrency index funds, including ones recently launched by Coinbase and Grayscale Investments, restrict contributions to accredited investors. These funds require large minimum investments — $50,000 for Grayscale’s and $250,000 for Coinbase’s — but they can be held in tax-advantaged accounts. Eventually, these conventionally-structured funds may be listed on over-the-counter (OTC) brokerage platforms, which would allow retail investors to purchase shares, though these shares would most likely trade at a steep premium to their NAV.

In any case, the growth of this product niche indicates a shift in the cryptocurrency investing landscape toward betting on the ecosystem writ-large and away from speculating on individual cryptoassets.

As CCN reported, cryptocurrency brokerage app Circle Invest recently launched a “Buy the Market” feature, which allows users to easily purchase market cap-weighted positions in every asset listed on the platform. It would not be surprising to see other investing apps release similar features soon.

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About The Author

Josiah is the US editor at CCN. In a past life, he taught Herodotus and Boethius to high school students. He holds long-term investment positions in bitcoin and other large-cap cryptocurrencies. Follow him on Twitter or email him directly at josiah.wilmoth(at)ccn.com.